To be frustrated that it's impossible to have a discussion on abortion ethics....

[coconuttella]

On one side there's those who believe an embryo has fully human rights from conception, and on the other those who believe the foetus has no rights at all until birth.

Both sides seem to put forward their position forcefully and dogmatically as though they're stating the obvious, and anyone who thinks the ethics surrounding it may be a more complex is shouted down, especially by some on the pro-chioice side who seem to view anyone who doesn't agree with their stance as a misogynistic slave of the patriarchy.

Personally, I'm not in either camp and find the ethical questions complex, with this being brought home the other evening when I was reading that Incas didn't regard babies and toddler as having human status until the age of 3-4 (where they had a ceremony to mark this rite of passage) and no longer totally dependent on their mothers and past the most perilous time wrt child mortality. It made me question again my thoughts on when we should a human should acquire rights, and frustrated me that any discussion on this immediately degenerates into a slanging match.

A question for those who are absolutely pro-choice (abortion on demand, for any reason, up to and including the moment of birth): do you think that the foetus has personhood at any stage of gestation (28wks? 35wks? 41wks?), or only once it has left the mother's body and is breathing independently?

A genuine ethical question. (For me, the foetus does have personhood, but I could not say precisely when that begins.)

Taking it right back to the OP's original question: It made me question again my thoughts on when we should a human should acquire rights

A really interesting one.

Exactly snarky, and while I often see ads begging people to agree to organ donation, and people on the transplant list die daily, I have never heard anyone suggest we do away with the consent thing and just take what is needed from brain dead bodies whether the families agree or not. That's how important the rights of a corpse are. Yet people suggest all the time that abortion should be banned.

Saying that you shouldn't be allowed to abort a healthy foetus and the baby can be given up for adoption due to the 'demand' for newborns is reducing an adult woman to the status of incubator, or enforced surrogate. What about the impact on their physical and mental health? Birth injury, need for a csection, risk of death, post partum depression/ psychosis, not to mention the potential for long lasting severe trauma due to being forced to gestate and birth and unwanted pregnancy and give that child up.

I genuinely cannot understand the mindset of anyone who would willingly see already born humans put through that, to protect a foetus. It is utterly repulsive to me.

No one mention crack addict . The fact you did exposes your judgement. I'd personally rather have an organ from a heroin addict.

I don't think mandatory organ donation is a good thing. Obviously where this is law, Wales, you can opt out. You have that choice.

Having the choice to do what you want with your body, is the key to this discussion. If you believe that once a girl/woman becomes pregnant that choice is taken away from her, then say so. Please don't beat about the bush. Speak your mind!

This is a horribly emotive issue and there are no clear lines that I can see on it. I will admit to having totally contradictory views on it. I am pro-life as I see the baby as a human being. However they came to be it is not their fault. However I cannot deny a woman's right to choose and have autonomy over her body either. The rights of the unborn have to be weighed against the rights of the mother and sometimes the rights of the mother to minimise psychological harm (or physical) will out weigh the rights of the unborn.

What I also believe is that for the vast majority of women who have gone down this route it has been a difficult decision and not one they've taken lightly. They deserve care and compassion and non-judgemental support.

We should also be actively trying to reduce the number of people in this situation by properly promoting contraception and (dreadfully old fashioned of me) abstinence. If you're not in a position to take the consequences of unprotected sex then maybe you shouldn't be doing it (this goes for both sexes - I also believe we don't force men to take enough responsibility for their actions - but that's another thread). Prevention has to be better than a cure with such long term impacts for so many people.

I have never heard anyone suggest we do away with the consent thing and just take what is needed from brain dead bodies whether the families agree or not

This has been an ethical conundrum for years! I believe some countries do have the opt-out system, whereby you have to say positively that you do not want your organs taken (otherwise they will be). It is often suggested that we do this in the UK.

KatherinaMinola

I am 100% pro choice. I believe the foetus has personhood even earlier than 24 weeks, but I still believe abortion should be available at those times. To me foetus is a person but it's ok to kill a person in some circumstances. Self defence is one. Euthanasia is one. Having an unwanted pregnancy is another.

I think pro choice people are trying to make it too simple by saying "it's not a person, it's just a bunch of cells". It's a person alright. Just not a person that can survive in this situation. It's a tough one.

katherina I think that's a really interesting question, and it's something that a lot of people struggle with. I think that we have it about right here. Post 24 weeks, doctors will do all in their power to save a baby born early. This is considered a viable point, despite the low survival rate and high percentage of severe complications. However, at any point, if, during a birth the doctors feel that they have to make a choice between saving the life of the mother or the baby, they will choose the mother.

Thanks for that response Pie, that's really interesting (and logical).

KatherinaMinola

The opt out system is a good idea, but that means you still have the option of opting out. You are still being given the choice.

It's a complicated ethical question for sure. No easy answers are there.

People will judge girls having a baby at 16 and keeping it and similarly judge them having babies in their mid 40s to mid 50s.

Once a woman/girl is in their reproductive years they are judged. Constantly.

This judgement has to stop.

Thanks Snarky too - I think the law as it stands is probably pretty much what most people feel comfortable with.

As for the judgy post about the 14 year old having three abortions because she refused to use contraception- that young person was a CHILD, who was being abused. Did nobody care about her well-being? Did no-one try and find out who was having sex with her- illegally?

Or does she just exist as a neat little anecdote?

But it's easier to worry about the unborn than the child already here who is being ill-treated.

The question about when personhood starts is very tricky. If you believe it's from conception then creating spare embryos for IVF is wrong. My BIL and his DW genuinely believe that and told DH and me that we were wrong to go through IVF for this reason. Never mind the fact that she had no difficulty getting pregnant and I'd witnessed her going through 3 pregnancies since DH and I had got married and she now has 5 children.

The irony was that I couldn't produce any embryos because there weren't any eggs.

The argument is consistent just ridiculous, as so many fertilised eggs don't implant in the uterus anyway.

I think viability is the main issue, which is why 24 weeks was set as the limit for terminations, though that could now be 20/21 weeks as no baby is able to survive outside the uterus before that. I think the line needs to be drawn somewhere, otherwise why draw it at birth either? (There are those that don't even now.)

But I don't think pro-life people generally think through how it will work, if all these babies are born. We have a care system already at breaking point.

@JessicaEccles, That was exactly my thought. It sounds more like a girl being abused than a girl using abortion as contraception. A horribly judgey post.

I genuinely cannot understand the mindset of anyone who would willingly see already born humans put through that, to protect a foetus. It is utterly repulsive to me.

I don't get why you can't grasp that some people consider that a foetus capable of independent life if outside the womb should be accorded some human rights, and if that's the case, those human rights should be protected.

I'm not squarely in the pro-life or pro-choice side.... there are all sorts of ethical conundrums here. I do really struggle with the mindset of those who regard this as a simple and obvious (on both sides!) and who seem genuinely incapable or unwilling to recognise the ethical dilemmas, resorting to one line mantras designed to shut down rather than engage with arguments.

But I don't think pro-life people generally think through how it will work

I agree, but that doesn't invalidate their position.

To use an analogy, for instance, I don't know how best to solve the social care crisis in this country, and maybe it's something I've not thought through well enough... It doesn't follow that because of this I can't also believe that children euthanising their elderly dependent parents is wrong.

The poster whose point I was responding to said that no healthy foetus should be aborted. I think if you are going to make statements like that then you need to acknowledge what that will mean, in reality, for the woman involved.

And if other posters are allowed to call abortion murder and condemn 14 year old abuse victims, I'm absolutely allowed to state that I believe forcing women to become surrogates, providing 'in demand' newborns for the benefit of others, is repulsive.

Not interested in the organ donation debate here as that's a situation that could effect anyone and to me another red herring.

Now pregnancy primarily only effects the body and the life of the pregnant woman so for me that pregnant woman has the absolute right over any decisions effecting her body.

It doesn't matter in my view if you see the foetus as life from conception or from 24 weeks or whatever it still is inside the woman's body so as such the woman has the right to abort it or not as she sees fit to suit her.

You can't have partial bodily autonomy it doesn't make sense.

How many women realistically would terminate a healthy baby at 36 weeks anyway. It's a nonsense idea.

If you have any limits on access to safe abortions you are risking women's health and that's just wrong in my view.

And are all these anti abortion going to adopt these hundreds of unwanted babies? Will they want their taxes put up to pay for the hundreds of children's homes that would be needed to house these unwanted children whose mothers are forced to have them.

Of course they fucking won't

How many women realistically would terminate a healthy baby at 36 weeks anyway. It's a nonsense idea.

OK. So you think "It's a nonsense idea" - that implies to me that there is some line in the sand for you too. Because the absolute pro-choice position is that it's an entirely reasonable idea which we should all vote for.

I think most people (even many pro-life/anti-abortion people) would find it hard to disagree strongly with someone terminating an unwanted pregnancy at 6 weeks.

I also think that most people (even a lot of pro-choice people) would struggle to agree with the idea of terminating an unwanted pregnancy at 36wks.

And (for me) it's the whys of those arguments that are interesting - because I think that in most people's eyes, the ethical difficulty is about when the foetus becomes a person.

Of course some people believe in no abortion ever and some people believe in abortion on demand always (and have entirely logical reasons for those positions) but I think a lot of people, if they really think about it, fall somewhere in the middle.